Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

Dudes,
Has anyone tried polishing the fork tubes on the 79' CR250R to bring them back to showroom condition? Is this the way to go or is there another way to achieve this? Any info will be gratly appreciated...

Paul in Va

The clear factory finish is easily removed with heavy duty paint stripper from a hardware store. Use gloves. Use very fine waterproof sandpaper 600 grit to sand out the nicks. Do it under warm soapy water. This can take a long time depending on how bad the forks are but be patient they come out nice. Once the nicks are out use a metal polish like Autosol to polish them up nice. They will end up as shiny as chrome. Depending on the finish you want you can rub them carefully with steel wool to give them texture. (I did this to my 75 CR125 forks to give them that slightly burnished factory look). After you are satisfied with the finish, clearcoat them with Yamaha Clear Top Coat spray urethane part number PNT-65000-04. This runs easily so use thin coats. Practice on some scrap metal first. Have forks and spray can warm so urethane sets up quicker.

I have buddies who have done this themselves, but you can also look up metal finishers in the Yellow Pages, or have Scott Steger at http://www.red-racer.com do it for you. If you need get the original lacquer off first go to Pep Boys and ask for airplane removal spray.

I used a wire wheel on a bench grinderwith with a brass bristle wheel. It gave the fork a factory finish. It took some time to get all the marks out but it is 100% now. Then clearcoat it.